Casting and Converting between types

Recently I was asked how to convert a number to a string. Let’s look at a few ways of approaching this problem.

Most objects in c# have a method called ToString() which displays the string representation of that object. This is because of inheritance, all objects inherit from System.Object which defines ToString().

Int32 is a struct so it inherits from System.ValueType which also inherits from System.Object

so in code

int a = 9;

string b = a.ToString();

Now let’s look at the reverse. However the reverse runs the risk of throwing an error, let’s look at why.

string b= “9”;

string c =”a”;

string d = “two”;

All are valid strings but only one can be converted to a number. Use the TryParse method to convert to a number.

int.TryParse(“9”, out int e);

TryParse will not throw an exception if the conversion fails, if it succeeds variable e will contain the result. Note an earlier version of c# required you to define the out parameter before using it with TryParse.

int.Parse exists to do the same thing however it will throw exceptions if a conversion is not possible. The same is true if you use Convert.ToInt32(“two”);

Casting

Casting is a way to explicitly telling the compiler that a type is actually another type and you are aware data loss will occur.

double x = 4.5;

int y = (int)x;

However it is not possible to cast a string to a number format as a string can contain any character not just number characters.

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